Coordination of Policy in the EEC

The most notable and best publicised achievements of the European Economic Community (EEC) have been in liberalising trade between its member countries. But apart from setting up the ‘common market’ from which it derives its popular name, the Treaty of Rome gave the Community the duty ‘to promote …. an harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the Member States belonging to it’. In addition to the elimination of barriers to the passage of goods between members and the establishment of a common agricultural policy and a common basis of trade with the outside world, the Treaty provided specifically for freedom of movement for persons, services and capital, a common transport policy, a system ensuring that competition should not be distorted, procedures for coordinating economic policies and remedying balance of payments disequilibria, the approximation of laws to the extent required for proper functioning of the common market, and a European Social Fund and European Investment Bank.